Beneath The Burning Tree
by eden alice
Summary: Danielle searches for some answers.
1. Chapter 1

Well this little idea just popped into my head (really did not plan to write something from Danielle's pov) while I was trying to warm up after I got home from work. It will be a two part story. Things that are not explained now will be in the next part. Hope you read and enjoy.

Beneath the Burning Tree

Danielle fingered the scrap of paper shoved deep into the pocket of her coat fighting the urge to look at it again just to make sure. Sometimes she still had to stop herself from being anxious when it came to something big, she might naturally be sensitive but she understood now that she had been blessed with enough stubbornness to compensate. She had slowly grown out of her lack of confidence; Ethan always told her that she was stronger than she will ever know. She might be able to believe him once this was over.

The address on the insignificant looking piece of paper was correct and even through the waves of sadness and apprehension her heart still leaped with something like excitement. The finality was something she needed and craved.

Golden brown leaves crunched under her feet as she entered the cemetery. Danielle wished her arrival could be quieter, more respectful, not that there was anyone around to disturbed, living anyway. She always had a deep seated awe at these kinds of places. She remembered a school trip to the local church one Christmas and how she had tried to imagine the lives of the people behind the cold information on the old tombstones.

The place was bigger than she expected and she felt momentarily lost. So many people have passed on and she knew nothing about them, but there was just one grave she wanted to visit, one person she should be able to remember. Their time together had been all too fleeting.

She headed away from the stones worn with time and covered in ivy noticing rows of newer looking graves, some marked only by a temporary wooded cross. The chill from the wind was bitter but expected for an early autumn afternoon. She wished she brought her scarf with her, but the fluffy purple scarf clashed with the deep red of her coat, one of the few things that was currently fitting her. She kept her chin down and let her hair blow across her eyes.

At first she did not see the other woman. Danielle stopped just far away enough that she would not be noticed. The other woman was also blonde; although her hair was so bright against the silver of her coat it could only be dyed. She was kneeling down on heels too high to be suitable for soft grass while simultaneously tending to some pretty flowers and keeping a hold on a small child.

Danielle approached the woman finding herself in the shade of a stark birch tree. Somehow this felt like the right place, she let her feet carry her before she could start to feel nervous.

The child noticed her first, a pretty little girl with sparkly blue eyes that could have been around the age of five, she pointed at Danielle and said something to her mother that was hard to understand from the short distance away.

The woman quickly turned, her animated face quickly shifted from sorrow to guarded hostility.

"Can I help you?" The woman asked standing and pulling the little girl into her arms. The child kicked her wellington clad feet and shoved her thumb into her mouth.

Danielle wanted to answer with yes and no in equal measure. She had a life far away from here; she had a mother and father, a brother and a new little family of her own. She was blessed. Yet this was something she had to do.

"I hope so." She offered the older woman a friendly, hopeful smile. She took in the other woman's eyes heavily lined with black, the way her expression now seemed more curious once she deemed that Danielle was not a threat. "Roxanne?" She guessed and watched the other woman's eyebrows rise in sceptical surprise.

It was a guess. She had never met the woman before having only reading her name before but it felt right. Intuitively she knew who she was talking to. A bold woman with an open face and dramatic clothes, Danielle felt like she always knew her.

"It's Roxy. Do I know you?"

The triumph Danielle felt was short lived. Roxy _should _know her well, she should be family. And oh god the child who was currently staring inquisitively at her was her cousin, it was like the little girl already knew.

"No…no, we have never met. It's just…" She trailed off and took the final few steps forward and looked on solemnly at the tasteful stone tombstone and colourful array of flowers. She touched the name carved in an elegant font. '_Veronica Mitchell'_

"I think she was my mum." The whispered words softened the bluntness of the statement. She had not planned to just blurt it out but then she had not expected to meet her aunt.

She already had an aunt, she already had a mum. A mum who had raised her and made her feel safe and loved. Danielle had not told them what she was doing feeling like she was betraying them. If it was not for Ethan's encouragement she did not think she would ever make it this far.

For a long time Roxy openly stared at her before her eyes became glassy with tears.

"You're Amy. You're her Amy." The little girl wriggled in her mother's arms and sent Roxy a questioning look but Roxy was too busy staring at Danielle.


	2. Chapter 2

Just wanted to thank everyone for their kind reviews, it really does mean a lot. This is the last part because I think it would lose focus if I turned it into a multiple chapter story. Besides that I prefer writing one shots. Hope you like this and it is at least a partially satisfying read.

Beneath the Burning Tree

The three of them sat on a near by wooden bench. The slats were dark and damp from not having a chance to dry out after the last time it had rained. Danielle could feel the coldness through her jeans and used the slight physical discomfort to ground herself and take in every second, every piece of information that her aunt could tell her.

Her biological mother's grave was just a few steps away and she could not bear to be any further away from it, from her mum.

She wondered if she had the chance to meet her mother in person if there would have been the same kind of magnetic pull that she felt towards the woman's final resting place

"She's not in there you know." Roxy said suddenly with a nod of her head towards the grave. She pulled a face as she searched for a way to explain herself better. "She was more than an empty body, than a grave. She was my sister. She is in my memories. I know you never got a chance to get to know her and I'm sorry but she's more than just a grave."

Danielle could not bring herself to anger; instead bitter acceptance and resignation made her chest feel tight. She had spent so long being angry and being confused and being lost. She finally had a chance and while she grieved for the loss of her perfect fairy tale reunion with her mother she would cling onto any connection to the mysterious woman with both hands.

"Tell me about her." She wanted to absorb everything that Roxy knew and turn it into her own.

Her aunt clutched Danielle's locket in her hands and started at the picture inside for the longest time and reminded Danielle of the countless times she had done the same. She had never found answers in her locket but she had found strength, a connection, she hoped Roxy found the same.

"It feels like a lifetime ago." Roxy whispers, her voice heavy with emotion clearly meaning the picture of her sister at a young age. The pain in her voice stopped Danielle pointing out that it had been a life time ago, her mothers; instead she let the other woman collect her thoughts.

"She called you Amy and I called this little one Amy after you." It was the most bizarrely fascinating thing, to have another name, as if she was destined for another life. Little Amy grinned widely, proud at the mention of her name. The little girl was missing her two front teeth and Danielle remembered herself at that age. Her niece had the name intended for her and she felt such an easy connection with the little girl who seemed to accept her presence without batting an eyelid.

"My parents named me Danielle, Danielle Jones." Danielle felt a need to reclaim her identify before she became lost in oceans full of possibilities of other lives.

"It's a good choice." Roxy's smile was awkward but affectionate "Your mum, everyone called her Ronnie. She hated Veronica, and our dad was the only person to call her it."

"Oh." Danielle was too busy trying to absorb the information and to think of the right question to ask first to feel silly about her stilted reply. She had new names for the fantasy versions of her biological family that existed in her head. She would have called her mother Ronnie, while she slowly got to know her or when her mother did something to anger or annoy her.

Roxy let out a hiccup of a laugh and Danielle turned to her startled out of her musing.

"I'm sorry," Roxy apologised, "Its just you look so much like her. I just can't believe…we thought you were dead."

Danielle was quickly caught up in her aunt's sudden frantic energy that was so out of place in the quiet of the graveyard. She did not have a chance to process that she looked like her mother, something she had always hoped for having nothing physically in common with her adoptive family.

"You thought I was…why?" It was so frustrating, she wanted her mother in her life so much and she did not understand it or was able to fight it. They seemed doomed to be ships passing in the night. All this time she wanted her biological mother to turn up and finally make her feel like she fitted, like she was wanted only to find the woman thought she was deceased. And now she finally reached out to be left with nothing but other people's memories and an ache so deep she did not think it would ever go away.

"Its really complicated and maybe I don't understand the details. Dad told Ron, he told her that you died as a child. There must have been some kind of mix up or something. Either that or dad made it up, Ronnie was suspicious but he wouldn't do that, he wouldn't."

At times Danielle had felt like an outsider, a ghost because no matter how much her family loved her sometimes it wasn't enough. And maybe eventually she could let go of some of her resentment towards her mother because now there was a reason why she never came and found Danielle. But anger pushed her away from rationality. She should have known. She should have intuitively known that it was not true. It was impossible and childish and not fair but now Danielle would never meet her birth mother and that was not fair either.

"Did she care?" Danielle's voice was so small she found herself pathetic.

"What?" Roxy questioned pulling her daughter onto her lap.

"When she thought I was dead, was she upset? Did she cry? Did she even care?" The timber of her voice shook as she slowly grew more hysterical. Little Amy looked a little frightened and she was immediately sorry but it did not stop her wondering. If her mother, Ronnie, she was going to have to get used to using the name in her head, had been glad that there was no chance or the child she gave away years ago coming back to haunt her, or maybe even worse if she did not even care, if she'd forgotten about her daughter all together.

"Oh babe," Roxy's warm hand wiped away tears Danielle did not even know she was crying. For a second she froze under the unexpected touch but Roxy did not notice or acknowledge any uneasiness.

"I've never seen her care about anything more. She carried the memory of you as a baby around for so many years. She regretted giving you up so much. It changed her and we used to argue about it. I didn't understand, couldn't until I had a child of my own. When she was told you had died she grieved. It was like the last tiny sliver of hope went away. I don't think she ever got over losing you again."

It was everything Danielle wanted to hear and yet it hurt so much. It was a relief to hear that her mother cared but she just wished she had been able to hug the woman to have her touch her the way her sister seemed so comfortable doing.

"How did she die? I found the obituary but it didn't say much."

When Roxy's eyes filled with tears she feared that she had said the wrong thing. It might sound morbid but she had to know, she needed every detail of this woman's life and death.

"Um, it was cancer, a brain tumour." Roxy laughed at an old memory but it sounded more like a wail as the tears flowed freely and smudged her make-up. "I told her that it was silly because she didn't have a brain to have a tumour in. In the end I was so angry at her for leaving me. She just seemed to give up. She had already lost you so she just gave up."

With her mothers clear distress Amy wrapped her small arms around her middle and buried her head in the fabric of her coat. "Aunty Ron went to heaven." She mumbled into the fabric.

"Of course she did baby." Roxy breathed ruffling her daughter's curls as she took a moment to compose herself.

Danielle wanted to hug the both of them but was still unsure if she would be welcome. She could not help but imagine what would happen if she had somehow been pushed into finding Ronnie years ago, how if they had been together then her mother would not have been so sad and she could help her when she was ill and she would not be dead now.

"Don't blame your self. God knows I'm carrying around enough guilt for a small country, but don't you go thinking you could have changed things. Cancer is evil and unfair and it took her away from all of us." Roxy reached out and squeezed Danielle's hand, her voice low and bitter. Danielle held her had tight in response and was relived when her aunt did not pull away, she did not think she could bare it.

"She had a locket too you know? With your picture inside. Ronnie always wore it. I made sure she was buried with it. She would have been upset if she didn't have it."

Danielle could barely see through the blur of tears and Roxy was looking at her in such an earnest way that made her heart feel like it might shatter.

"What was her favourite film?" Danielle demeaned with a sudden urgency. Roxy looked momentarily blank. "Where did she work? How did she wear her hair?" She wanted the information as quickly as possible. She had such a bleak picture of her mother in death and now she needed to know what she had been like in life.

"Thelma and Louise. She owned a night club. Long and wavy with a side fringe. I have a picture in the car if you want one."

Danielle closed her eyes and nodded. The pieces of information overriding anything her imagination could create.

"She saved me from drowning in an icy lake once." Danielle's eyes shot open with surprise but the sheepish expression on Roxy's face stopped her questioning the truth of the statement.

"Wow, she was actually a superhero." She had not met her mother and sometimes she hated the woman yet Danielle could not help but be in awe of her. She wished she could be just as brave, as successful.

"Nah. She was bossy and stubborn and she could hold grudges for ages. And she would never let me borrow any of her expensive clothes" Roxy wrinkled up her nose as she listed her sisters imperfections in a way only siblings could.

"But she was my sister and she looked after me and I miss her so much." Danielle understood the change in tone and the depth of Roxy's grief for her sister because she felt as well. She felt a connection to the older woman that went past blood and DNA.

And maybe she was blessed in ways she was too blinded to see. She had the family that brought her up and she might have missed her chance with her biological mother but she had an aunt and a niece and other relations to be revealed. There were so many people in her life that cared about each other and maybe it was enough.

"What about you?" Roxy asked boldly. Tears still stained her cheeks but her eyes were dry and bright.

What do you mean?" Danielle did not think she could ever get used to her aunt's unpredictable way of changing the conversation even with a lifetime of practice.

"Tell me all there is to know about you. You're my niece now and I'm not letting you escape." Amy giggled and pulled at Danielle's coat in a way of agreeing with her mother.

Danielle was suddenly embarrassed to talk about herself. The glimpse she had into the Mitchell way of life seemed exciting and exhausting and she was not sure how her mundane life would compare.

"There's not much really, nothing exciting. I grew up in Telford with my mum and dad and my brother."

"They are nice people right?" Roxy cut in sounding concerned. "I just mean I hope they love you and look after you properly."

Danielle had never really given it too much thought but it must have been hard especially for her mum. Having a daughter constantly wonder about another mother who had given her away as a baby, Danielle was going to show her mum just how much she appreciated her when she got back home.

"They are the best adoptive parents anyone could ask for." She said after a moment of contemplation. Roxy's answering smile was bright and wide.

"And now you are having a little one yourself." Roxy snorted a laugh. "And suddenly I feel very old."

Danielle placed a hand on the roundness of her stomach. She was far enough along that the bump was noticeable and she needed bigger clothes but not so far she had to waddle everywhere.

"Yeah I know I'm young but I couldn't wait to start a family and Ethan feels the same." It was not very feminist of her but Danielle could see nothing better than having her own little family to look after.

"Ethan? I want to know about him. Is he hot?"

Danielle laughed.

"Well he might be a bit scared of you. Well he is two years older than me and we've been dating just over three years. He is an engineer but he wants to become a writer. We just bought our first flat together. It's small but its home." She could not help but light up as she talked about her boyfriend and the baby that she had already decided was a boy.

She had finally come looking for her mother when she was about to become one herself. The need to seek her out had been so strong it had kept her awake at night. She wished her mother would have a chance to meet her grandchild.

"That is fantastic. You have no idea how happy that would make Ronnie." Roxy shifted her daughter before placing the little girl on the floor.

Danielle only read sincerity in her aunt's eyes and was surprised at the depth of how pleased that made her. Somehow all her confidence and self worth were tied to a woman who had walked out of her life so many years ago. Mentally she scolded herself; of course Ronnie would want her to happy she was not some kind of monster.

And she was happy even without ever meeting her mother. She had made a life for herself and it hurt that she would never be able to share it with Ronnie but her life was so full and eventually it would be enough.

"What happens now?" Danielle asked digging the heels of her boots into the soft ground and stared at the bright flowers that covered her mother's grave. She wanted to bring flowers of her own, they would be bigger and brighter than the rest because this woman was her mother and she loved her.

"We'll give you some time to get your head round this. Look I parked in the car park on top of the hill. Me and Amy can wait for you and you can back with us. No pressure but there is lots of people who would like to meet you. Besides there is more of Ronnie in Walford than there is here."

Danielle nodded a lump forming in her throat. She would phone Ethan and let him know that she would not be coming home that night. When she would explain he would be delighted and encourage her to go and be closer to her biological mother's family. She really needed to tell him how much she loved him and how good for her he was. If she'd learnt one thing it was that you had to appreciate all that you have in life before it ends.

Roxy smiled at her and Amy threw her arms around her and Danielle's heart went out to the little girl. "You can come see my toys!" Amy exclaimed, pleased to have a new friend even if she did not understand quite what the tow adults had been talking about.

"I'd love to." Danielle smiled at the little girl as her mother called her away.

Soon Danielle was left in silence overwhelmed and a little breathless. She pushed herself away from the bench and approached her mother's grave, placing her hand on the smooth stone for support as the first few drops of rain fell.

"Hi Mum." She whispered.

**The End**


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